Add “Diamonds Pong” To Your Summer Drinking Game Arsenal

The “Wu Tang Financial” sketch featured in season 1, episode 7 of Chappelle’s Show includes an iconic scene in which GZA locks eyes with a client across a mahogany conference room table and says, “You need to diversify yo bonds…” This priceless piece of financial advice from the cofounder of what is arguably the East Coast rap game’s most prolific group has inspired me to diversify not only my bonds, but many other aspects of my life as well.

I’ve found that a willingness to try new things is almost always a good thing. Unless we’re talking about STDs or intravenous drug use, variety is usually beneficial. One specific area of my life that I’ve found to be in especially dire need of diversification is my drinking game repertoire.

Having just wrapped up an entire school year living in the basement of my fraternity house, I’ve killed more time than I care to admit standing around a 4×8 piece of plywood playing the same exact drinking games with the same exact people until I felt like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. “Watch out for that island cup; it’s a real doozy!”

Bored to tears with standard beer pong, I needed something new in my life. Badly. I was one game of slap-cup away from just giving up and accepting the fact that being in college means going to the same party every weekend for four years.

Luckily, a couple of weeks ago, my brother Jake introduced me to a completely new way of playing beer pong.

The game is called Diamonds, and it is the only drinking game that I will be partaking in for the foreseeable future. If you’re somebody who’s looking for something new and fun to try with your boys, your girls, your coworkers, your grandparents, or really anybody with a penchant for cold beer on a hot day, you need to play this game.

The Setup

1. 4×8 piece of plywood on top of two sturdy 32-gallon trash cans (or whatever will adequately support the table at just about waist height).

2. Four human people who are fun, decently quick learners, and are capable of performing activities that require rudimentary hand-eye coordination.

3. Seventeen plastic solo cups. Four cups in each corner arranged in the shape of a diamond, one cup in the middle of the table. All cups are to be filled with a generous quantity of beer.

4. Two quality ping-pong balls.

The Gameplay

Diamonds is played in teams of two with partners standing diagonally across from one another in opposite corners of the rectangular table. This is a significant deviation from the arrangement of standard beer pong; your teammate is positioned diagonally across from you rather than immediately next to you.

The object of the game is to shoot on — and eliminate — your own partner/teammate’s rack of cups before the other team is able to get rid of all of their cups. However, there are a number of additional rules that make this race to delete your cups a bit more complicated and subsequently much more intense.

The game begins with two players standing shoulder to shoulder on the same side of the table shooting their balls simultaneously (diagonally) across the table at their teammate’s diamond of cups.

If a player sinks a ball into their teammate’s cup, the teammate then removes that cup from their diamond (keeping the ball) and places said cup in front of the opponent standing immediately next to them. The opponent with the beer in front of them must then chug the beer and successfully flip it (flip-cup style) onto the table before they are allowed to shoot their own ball again.

Once a team has eliminated all eight of their cups, they must bounce the ball into the full cup in the middle of the table (the 17th cup). This is the most intense part of the game, especially if both teams have killed all of their cups. If they miss the bounce shot, they just recover the ball and try again until they sink it. Once they do, the game is over. The losing team kills the middle cup.

This game harmoniously combines distinct aspects of beer pong, beer ball, flip cup, and slap cup all into one high-octane, adrenaline-charged binge drinking competition that is sure to crank the energy up a notch at any backyard kickback, house party, or pregame.

Summer is the time to try new things. Diamonds pong is a great place to start..